Many new camera users are intimidated by the huge amount of features and functions on even medium price digital cameras and often opt for the simple point and shoot models instead. While these cameras are fine, their ability to take pictures in varying conditions is limited and the special effects or long distance photos that can be taken are almost non existent. It makes sense for a newcomer to digital photography to spend on an intermediate digital camera (the professional ones have features the average photographer will never use and are far too expensive.)

The first thing to remember about digital photography is that a unlike a film camera a bad picture does not result in any waste – it can simple be deleted in the camera itself. With the number of photos you take not burning a hole in your pocket, you can take as many pictures as you want and while keeping the good ones, learn from the bad ones before deleting them. With the freedom to experiment and a little reading on the basics, you introduction to digital photography will be smooth and easy. And once you understand the basic settings, you will want to go on to the more advanced features to improve the quality of the photos you take.

When there are important pictures to take and you cannot risk experimenting there is always the “auto” function to fall back on – all you need to do is press the shutter button so you can play safe when you need to. And even in “auto” mode your camera, with its better sensors, lens and software, will take photos of a higher quality than a basic digital camera.

No introduction to digital photography can ignore that aspect of the photography that occurs outside the camera - the editing and manipulation of pictures on your computer. Every digital camera will come with the software to download photos to a computer and most will have editing and photo manipulation features to enable you to improve on the images you have captured. What this means is that you can take any picture, repair defects, add special effects, crop out unwanted portions of it, and magnify the images. This means that there are no bad photos – you can have a lot of fun, and also learn a lot about photography, by editing and manipulating images on your computer.

This is what makes digital photography so much better than conventional film photography – your creativity is almost unlimited as it the amount of fun it can provide you.